20200411_fitz

Tom Fitzgerald's household is full again.

Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, Fitzgerald has returned to his Boston area home to be with his wife Kerry and their four sons, Ryan, Casey, Jack and Brendan. It is a silver lining to an otherwise difficult set of circumstances.

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      BLACK and RED BANTER | Tom Fitzgerald

      "We haven't had this around our house in a long time - all six of us under one roof. We're actually sitting at the kitchen table having dinner."

      Fitzgerald's sons are in their late teens and 20's. Tom normally spends the majority of his time between his home in Massachusetts and in New Jersey.

      He's getting in his family time as they all practice social distancing under one roof.

      "I live a pretty simple life," the interim GM said. "Exercise is important to me, obviously my family is important to me. I've got a decent size yard in the back, my boys have set up a pitching course, with the hole, some targets, some mats and something called Birdie Ball. We have contests at night, or we're playing ping-pong or on the driveway, we're pretty active."

      But like the rest of us, Fitzgerald misses hockey.

      "Someone asked what you miss most when you retire," he said "It's the comradery of the locker room, the players, the guys, the staff, it's the same thing right now. I really quench the staff that we have right now and being around them. It's every day for us. When you get that ripped away from you, you miss it. We all love the time we're getting to spend with our family, but we also miss the things that we've become accustomed to, and that's the daily interactions with our staff."

      Although he is physically away from the game and Prudential Center, Fitzgerald is in constant communication with his staff, everyone continuing and adapting their roles with the NHL currently on a pause.

      If he needs it, his alarm goes off at 7:30 am every day. He starts his day with a cup of coffee, and then he gets to work.

      "I'll get on my computer and synchronize our hockey RinkNet program for our scouting and try to get updates on reports," he said, covering his day from start to finish. "All we're doing is video reports right now, I'll try to jump ahead there. Every day I've got a nine o'clock call with HBSE which lasts 20 minutes to a half-hour. Zoom has been fantastic."

      Through this NHL pause, Fitzy, as he's affectionately known, is continuing to work towards the next milestones in a hockey season: the draft, free agency etc. Though the 'Important Dates' calendar will shift given the pause, that doesn't stop him from getting ahead of the game.

      "We've always utilized video scouting," he noted. "The amateur teams, they didn't pause, they were just canceled, kaput, done. We immediately went to video scouting and right to the amount of viewings we potentially lacked and gave out assignments to our scouts, including myself.

      "Modern day video, you can just watch kids shifts, you can watch a whole game, you can watch both to understand a kid," he continued. "So, it's really just ramped up here. How it compares to the past? The obvious, we lost a piece of the season, an important part of the season: playoffs. What I think it has done is it's helped us understand and appreciate how we moving forward and can use video, even throughout the season and understand how big of a piece of the puzzle it can be to help understand who players really are."

      As for a return to the game itself, Fitzgerald's guess is as good as the next. But what he does know is that he wants to finish out the season in some sort of way. If not for the team, but for those who support it.

      "I think ideally you finish off a percentage of what you had left in regular-season games, it's only fair to the fans," he shared. "I think it's right by the players. There are some races going on, and maybe you're a spoiler to some of these teams that are knocking on the playoff door, that's what I would like to see […] I think it would be fun for the non-playoff teams like ourselves, to jump in and basically say goodbye to our fans and get ready for the following year."

      And getting ready for next year is no easy task. There is a lot to manage, especially as the NHL landscape keeps shifting, and Fitzgerald is using his time from home wisely. In between his afternoon runs and walks, he's on the phone, video scouting and evaluating to improve the future of the franchise. There is work to be done. The 2019-20 Devils season did not turn out the way anyone in the organization would have wanted. He recognizes there is still a next level this team needs to reach.

      "We can't change the past, we can only think about moving forward," he said. "We feel we have a really good core of young players. I think that's obviously been stated in prior conversations. I think trying to support this group, I whole-heartedly believe we can't just have kids playing in the National Hockey League. You've got to have men supporting them, I say that with all due respect to our young men. But experience is something that you can't just create it."

      The young players already a part of the franchise are gaining experience, Nico Hischier has taken on a larger leadership role and Jack Hughes just went through his first professional season, Mackenzie Blackwood made his mark on the league as well, carrying the number one goaltender role at just 23 years old.

      These are the types of players Fitzgerald expects to build around and support with the right culture.

      "We feel that we have some pillars to have long-term success here, but it's up to our [management] group to fill those holes," he said. "We've got young players coming, we've got good young players. I think the keywords are young and inexperienced. We need to allow them to grow into the projections when we drafted some of these guys or traded for and what they can be. Just let them grow at their own pace, it's important."

      The balance Fitzgerald is looking to find is adding players to the mix that will complement and help grow the talent already in the system.

      "You have to have the right people to support our young kids and the right culture to surround these kids with and just let them prosper in it," he shared.

      For players who could make a push for a roster spot in next year's training camp, Fitzgerald has no plans to rush anyone along. He firmly believes players themselves tell you when they're ready. If they aren't quite there yet, there remains a plan in place.

      "We'll see if Ty Smith is NHL ready," he shared. "But if he's not we've got a plan for him. He will go to the American Hockey League and work on his entire game and most importantly work on confidence "Kevin Bahl is another player. To be honest, we're not counting on any player to come in and be on our team, we want them to develop the right way. If they come in breaking down the door like Jesper Bratt did a couple years ago and they force us to keep them on the team, then they're ready. We'll let them go at their own pace, but if they're not knocking on the door then we have a plan for them down in Binghamton. The American Hockey League should be used to allow players to develop at their own pace but put them in a place to be successful."

      For now, everything but the work behind the scenes is in a holding pattern, so Fitzgerald finds himself with full days preparing the franchise for its next stage.

      After dinner in the Fitzgerald house, his sons scatter around to do their own thing. It leaves a moment of solitude, he can rest a bit after what are otherwise busy - though unusual - days.

      "We know everybody missing coming to The Rock and watching your favorite team," he confided. "We all miss it, and I think the most important thing is that we will get back there. But in the meantime, keep self-distancing, doing what the government and CDC is asking us to do, which is really stranglehold this pandemic and move forward. As much as you miss us, we miss you."